Twin Blame (Part One)
An excerpt from my memoir, a work-in-progress. Part Two will be published next week, stay tuned.
The little bungalow at the end of the road looks lop-sided, a little worse for wear. I notice the roof reflects a weird metallic colour, the weight of many years of snow and rainfalls impacting its surface. There’s a small blue sign sticking out on the green-grayish lawn, a golden hand with pictographs on the fingers and a blazing eye in the center of the palm. I’ve been staring at this house for years, noticing it on the bus rides home from elementary school, a mild curiosity at those exotic-looking symbols on the glowing hand. Unease mixed in with wonder. This dilapidated house sits in the middle of a tidy, straight-and-narrow, almost sanitized looking row of houses.
I remember my mother telling me that before our family moved to Toronto back in the 80’s, that she and my father went to visit a psychic.
“I don’t believe it. You two?!”
She giggled, putting her hand up to her mouth. “We had some difficult decisions to make. Your dad was promoted, but your grandmother was dying. We didn’t know what to do, so we took the chance and saw one.”
“What did she tell you?”
“She told us we were making the right decision, that we would be fine and that we should move.”
“What if she had told you two to stay?”
My mom sighed. “Well…she didn’t, did she? We already knew what was the right choice. To leave and make a new home for ourselves. I suppose we wanted to hear it from someone else, to be sure.”
I always imagined what would have happened, if the psychic told my parents to stay in Montreal. What my life would have been like. If I would have met and collided with someone else. Or maybe not at all.
I look over at the slow blinking neon sign in the window, a crude picture of an evil eye, stomach clenching as I knock on the door. I imagine a petite wild-haired woman answering the door, wearing too many patterned scarves and harem pants, her long fingers guiding me through a mirrored hallway lit with candles and bergamot incense wafting through every room.
A towering heavy-set figure with a fleece sweater opens the door, her face a dark olive colour, a shade of creamy walnut. A large stain appears on her shoulder, crusted old food or maybe even vomit. She smiles broadly as she opens the door, but her eyes do not. Long, almond, lined with black liner, her deep-set eyes haunted, serious. She motions me to step in.
I am scared shitless.
